Switch to full style
Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
Post a reply

My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing it!

September 11th, 2017, 14:16

Hello!

Please before calling me a moron, understand that I have done a lot of soldering work in my life. I've put SPDIF audio ports on my SNES (11 or so extremely tiny soldering points) and gave my original NES an RGB upgrade. So I was very confident I could do this.

The hard drive is a Seagate ST2000DM0001

It seems as though a LOT of people on the internet have a problem with this drive's PCB. The reason I am sure it was the PCB was because I've had drives die before, and they usually start reporting errors or making weird noises. This one just completely disconnected itself while I was in the middle of copying files from this drive to another drive and it made no weird noises. It still doesn't make any weird noises. My PC just refuses to detect it.

Anyway I bought a replacement PCB for it online that was a match and I completely destroyed the original ROM chip while trying to remove it. I got all the pins off OK except the last one which literally slid right off of the chip from the side. It's like it wasn't even enclosed in the plastic. It was really weird. It didn't "break" off so much as it just slid off the chip. Really infuriating and frustrating!

I followed some guides on how to Dremel down on the chip to expose metal I could solder to but sadly it didn't work and the chip is toast.

What I am wondering is how screwed I am. Is there someone here that can "program" the chip for me so it will resurrect my drive? I of course will pay whatever you charge; I just don't know if it can be done. Is this ROM chip actually tied to the serial number? Meaning, maybe the replacement PCB I bought wasn't a 100% match. If I found one that was 100% identical from a drive that was even manufactured on the same day as mine, would it not work? Or is even that specific not enough for a PCB swap without swapping the ROM chip?

I really appreciate any pointers anyone could give. There was some really good stuff on this drive, and of course with my luck the thing did this while I was trying to be responsible and backing it up to a different drive. Ugh. Anyway, thanks for reading. Here are the other specs if needed:

Seagate Barracuda
SN: Z1FR7H3
Model: ST2000DM001
PN: 1CH164 - 301
FW: CC24
Date: 13203
Site: TK
Product of Thailand
2000GB

Re: My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing i

September 11th, 2017, 14:43

First off, you misdiagnosed the problem. Unless the drive wasn't spinning up at all there's a 99.9% chance the issue wasn't that. It was most likely a firmware glitch which is extremely common with this model. We see them every day, and I've only about once seen one where this model was a blown PCB. And, that's out of about a thousand we've recovered here.

Now that the ROM is cooked, you can pretty much forget about recovery. There is one user of this forum (pepe) who claims he can rebuild a lost ROM with this model, but it'll cost a small fortune and I'm not even 100% sure he can do it.

Re: My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing i

September 11th, 2017, 15:45

Although there is probably one case that I'm missing, I honestly cannot think of one drive of this model that I've seen with a damaged PCB. I won't go so far as to say you are totally screwed, but as was already stated, it is not an easy recovery now and definitely won't be cheap nor fast.

Re: My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing i

September 11th, 2017, 17:18

Can you show us a picture (clear, close-up) of the ROM, please.

Re: My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing i

September 11th, 2017, 21:01

LarrySabo wrote:Can you show us a picture (clear, close-up) of the ROM, please.
There might have been a chance when the pin was broken but I'm guessing when the Dremel got plugged in it was game over. Still might be worth having a look though.

Re: My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing i

September 12th, 2017, 14:15

Blizzard wrote:
LarrySabo wrote:Can you show us a picture (clear, close-up) of the ROM, please.
There might have been a chance when the pin was broken but I'm guessing when the Dremel got plugged in it was game over. Still might be worth having a look though.


http://i.imgur.com/8NdEy7Y.jpg

No jokes about what a moron I am, please :)

Re: My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing i

September 12th, 2017, 14:15

Blizzard wrote:
LarrySabo wrote:Can you show us a picture (clear, close-up) of the ROM, please.
There might have been a chance when the pin was broken but I'm guessing when the Dremel got plugged in it was game over. Still might be worth having a look though.


No jokes about what a moron I am, please :)
Attachments
IMG_20170912_102226.jpg

Re: My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing i

September 12th, 2017, 14:52

Hamburglar wrote:No jokes about what a moron I am, please :)
I'm sure you have already beat yourself up enough, no need for anyone to pile on. If it's important data you should probably just send the HDD to a data recovery lab. Most of us have a "no data, no charge" policy.

Re: My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing i

September 12th, 2017, 21:18

I don't understand the solder blob and/or white stuff at the "top" end of the ROM? Which leg was it that broke off? If you want to send it to me, I'll see what I can do. See PM.
Attachments
Badly soldered ROM.jpg
Badly soldered ROM.jpg (44.28 KiB) Viewed 7884 times

Re: My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing i

September 15th, 2017, 18:17

Hello,

i have solution for the lost rom scenario for some seagate families, unfortunately 1CH is not one of them. I was pretty close to solve it in 2014 but i am not any closer today either :(

there might be a chance of reading the chip however, but not by using your methods i think.

Re: My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing i

September 16th, 2017, 5:29

hi you have soldering problem
first remove rom chip and clean pcb with alcohol
then solder chip
then clean again pcb and rom pins

Re: My Seagate HD PCB died. I ruined the ROM chip removing i

September 16th, 2017, 5:38

from the OP i think that train is gone. some pin is missing from the chip. Perhaps there is a chance to wire it under microscope but definitely not with the kind of skils he has. :=s

pepe
Post a reply